The Most Successful Embedded Software Business

During our twenty-eight-year history as an embedded software vendor, there have been at least one hundred other embedded software vendors. Ten of them have gone public. None of them has ever paid a dime in dividends to their investors. None of them has earned enough money in its entire history to be able to repay the amount investors sunk into it.

In contrast, Green Hills Software has earned over $70,000,000 in net profits according to audited financial statements prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (not proforma earnings). We have been profitable in every one of the last 23 years. Our profits have been so consistently high that we have been able to finance an average annual growth rate of over 30% per year for 19 years, without any additional capital beyond the $83,000 that was invested to start Green Hills Software in 1982. We are the second largest company in this industry and we have the fastest market share growth. Green Hills Software is also the most profitable RTOS company. We have made far more money than all other embedded software vendors combined!

An organization that continuously pays returns to its investors is a BUSINESS. Green Hills Software has paid over $30,000,000 in cash dividends to its investors. Green Hills Software has been a successful BUSINESS for twenty-eight years.

Enticed by the extraordinary growth and profits that Green Hills Software has achieved, Optimistic venture capitalists, investment bankers, and public shareholders have poured more than a billion dollars into embedded software companies. But the failure of any company other than Green Hills Software to succeed in this industry proves that is not easy to make a profit competing with Green Hills Software.

Every company that enters this industry claims that their "disruptive technology" will provide revolutionary advances in productivity that will sweep away all existing market participants. These newcomers are no different than the dot.com promoters who did not understand the businesses they were trying to displace with "clicks not bricks." Investors in this industry have fared no better: they have lost more than a billion dollars trying to compete with us.

Few other embedded software vendors have ever netted so much as a dime in their entire history. Most of them lose more money every day. These embedded software vendors have to keep going back to their investors for more money just to stay in business.

An organization that continuously requires more money to finance its operations is a CHARITY, not a BUSINESS. They may be good at raising money but they don't know how to run a BUSINESS that will survive over the long run.

Our customers are developing the electronic systems that run modern civilization: from ink jet printers to supersonic fighter jets. Our customers develop the electronic devices that run our cars, airplanes, entertainment systems, telephones, the Internet, weapons systems, medical devices, offices, factories, the electric power grid, nuclear power plants, etc. Understanding the complex needs of the highest technology customers can only be learned from being successful in this business for twenty-eight years. Downloading free software off of the Internet or implementing some untried academic theory is no way to develop a comprehensive range of products and services that actually increase programmer productivity for the highest technology companies. It's not easy to reduce time to market, development costs, and manufacturing costs for the highest technology companies, while boosting the performance, capability, and reliability of the world's most advanced electronic products.

Our customers need software development tools to develop reliable software quickly. If they use software development tools that don't provide any competitive advantage, they will lose out in the world's most fiercely competitive markets. Providing the developers of the most advanced electronic products with a competitive edge is what has made Green Hills Software the most successful embedded software vendor for the last twenty-eight years.